 But here's the beauty of being small gardeners, being in our own yards. The beauty of that is you get to control it all. I mean honestly you don't have to destroy a thing, you get to actually regenerate things, you get to give back, you get to build more soil, get to call in the pollinators that you want to pollinate your vegetables and fruits and everything else, you need all of that. And so not harming that ecosystem is just as important as getting the food that you want. In fact, I think you wouldn't have the food that you want if you harmed the entire ecosystem. So the point, it all goes together. And there's ways, you know, depending on what you're trying to grow and what you're doing, there are ways to make that happen. Welcome to Inside Ideas with me, Mark Buckley. We will be speaking to regenerative futurists, game changers, on systemic change, out desirable futures with those who want to see us on the right side of history, brought to you by 1.5 Media, Innovators Magazine, and sponsored by the Alohas Regenerative Foundation. Chris McLaughlin is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas. Master Gardener and Modern Homesteader. Chris has been gardening and studying plants for over 40 years. She's the author of nine books. Her latest book is The Good Garden, How to Nurture Pollinators, Soil, Native Wildlife, and Healthy Food, all in your own backyard. Chris's book promises to give you all the tips, the tricks that you need to grow a sustainable garden of your dreams on your own with the tools that you need for where you're at. The Good Garden is about growing healthiest and most scrumptious fruits, vegetables as possible, as absolutely possible for you, for your life, for where you're at, and whatever environment you're in. But it's also about giving back, giving back to the earth environment, to nature, to other species. How can you and your little patch of earth become a sanctuary for threatened wildlife, sequester carbon, and nurture native plants? Well, Chris answers those questions in her very exhaustive book of tips, tricks, and all sorts of fun facts that everyone needs to know to get on the right side of gardening to start out right without the hair pulling and frustrations that some of us may have felt in the past. She's drawing from established traditions such as permaculture, the French intensive gardening, and hard-earned experience. For newbies, this is an experience gardeners alike. It will teach the fundamentals, including how to choose the right plant varieties, your microclimate, and proven methods to fight pests without chemicals. You will also discover nuances of developing the green thumb and picking species to attract specific type of pollinators. Clear down to composting techniques based on time available in your day, and through lovely photography in this book. So we don't want to give Chris's book away and read it for you. We want to tease you enough so that you say, hey, I've been thinking about getting into gardening. I've been thinking about homesteading. I've been thinking about some of these things. And where is the book? Chris's book is really the good in the gardener. It makes sense to get it. It's an exhaustive tips and tricks pretty much for anyone. I recommend you highly get it. And I want you to know Chris has been doing this really for 40 years. I want to tell you about some of the other things that she's done. So she was an associate editor from Scratch Magazine and a staff contributor to vegetablegardener.com. Her work has appeared in magazines such as Urban Farm Magazine, Hobby Farm Home Magazine, The Herb Companion, The heirloom gardener, and Fine Gardening Magazine. So besides the book we're talking about today, she's also written The Completed Yet Guides to Composting, The Completed Yet Guides to heirloom vegetables, hobby farms, small space rabbit keeping, The Completed Yet Guides to small space gardening, vertical vegetable gardening, raising animals for fiber, a garden to die for, and growing heirloom flowers. So wow, okay, we've got the expert here. Chris, welcome to the show. Thank you for bearing with my introduction. It's so good to have you here. Oh, that was amazing. Thank you, Mark, for having me here. I appreciate it. You're most welcome. So we've just kind of come through an amazing time, and we're still kind of, in some respects, crawling and kicking and scratching our way through it still, pandemic, economic downturns, elections, Brexit, and Ukraine war, and whatever other craziness that has been going on in the world. And through it all, what we've really seen is that growing your own food is like printing your own money. It's like a great way to sustain yourself. It's a great hobby. It's a great way to keep you connected to nature and busy during times of craziness in the world, but also to kind of find a way to still get some basics out of life. This book comes kind of hopefully at the tail end of some of this craziness as it's been released by Island Press. Tell me, how have you weathered that time, and what prompted you to kind of get into the book and to write it? Is it also because you're seeing so much awareness around the world, kind of in doing it yourself, getting into different modes of being more self-sufficient? What was some of your motivation behind it? Well, you know, this was actually, to be honest, I've written a lot of books and hundreds and hundreds of articles and things, but this was actually the book of my heart. It was a book that I actually had inside me about 20 years ago, and it was really funny. It was kind of, I was pitching it, it was under a different name, and certainly I'm kind of happy that it came now because I have learned so much more. So really, I'm almost grateful it didn't happen then. But what they were saying 20 years ago to me was, oh, you know, this whole suburban farming situation. It just wasn't really getting traction at that point. But of course, then right after that, a bunch of books came out, I was kind of like thunking my head, you know, but it was okay because really I added so much more that I wanted to say it because I just kept learning and growing and changing. But, you know, one of the things, the one thing that I'm about every time I write in anything, you know, honestly, I am about putting the power back into your hands, like honestly, and this sounds really, really strange. I mean, the whole global things and all that, that's one thing. But it really, all of that comes back down to the individual people. And so what I have found is, and this has been going on for, I, you know, I feel like even before the pandemic, I still feel like people are feeling a sense of disconnect. And I don't just mean with where their food came from. That's kind of an obvious thing. A lot of people are disconnected. But not just that, just out of control. I think they don't feel they have control of anything. And the truth is you have a lot of control and you just, no one's really showing that to you. And what I found, you know, especially with people that were having trouble with, you know, even depression or just trying to find yourself, whatever that might look like, you may not be a major gardener, but gardening and growing food certainly flowers, of course, and everything. But specifically when you grow some food for yourself and you find you've planted this lettuce, and my goodness, you all grow lettuce because it grows so fast. You have that on your table in no time. So it's like a really great thing to start with. When they find that they actually plant the seed and they nurture it and it grows and they harvest it and they put it on the table and they are feeding their family with it. This is a whole different thing to going out and bringing home the bacon and frying it up. Okay, it's a whole different thing is you're literally doing it, not figuratively, not I'm getting my paycheck from somebody else. If I still have a job, if whatever, it's, you really, really did that. So what I'm trying to get to is is very empowering. And what happens is when you get that empowered feeling, it spills into the rest of your life. That's really how I've always looked at it. It makes you feel like, my gosh, I literally fed my family like, you can do anything if you can do that. You know, I mean, it's really cool. And what I found was a lot of people when I talk about this stuff. Yes, I live on a farm. It's a small farm. It's only five acres. But I can do a lot of things, maybe a little more loosely than someone in the suburbs could do. So for instance, I don't hide my compost piles out there. But maybe in suburbia, you might want to put a cute little fence around it or something just to make it more aesthetic. You want to be respectful of what people are looking at and seeing, because really the idea is to get everyone involved. And but that all being true, I do everything here that I used to do in suburbia. Many years ago, I used to go into the handle of a suburban farmer, because I was doing all this in suburbia. I had left the farm gone back to the Bay Area and was kind of forced to recreate my farm on this smaller area. And I did all of it. And it was beautiful. I mean, it was there was nothing, you know, it didn't look like this because I did it a little more aesthetically. But, you know, honestly, everything anyone else can do, you can do on very small part. So I just wanted to share that with people. And that was kind of the motivation. And also my love for wildlife was a big motivation to write this book as well. That's beautiful. Yeah. I have wonderful fond memories as a child, you know, grandmother's garden going out and picking berries and fruits and just eating them right out there in the garden. Yeah. And, you know, when I was going through your book, it was really beautiful because you touch from A to Z, everything that you would need to think of when it comes to gardening and gardening, I would say at a scale. So no matter how small to no matter how big you want to get and that it's really a beautiful thing because everything that comes out in your book is that how do you want it? How do you want it to be? What is your choice? What is your desire and what based on this design or how you structure it and how you set up this garden, what do you believe will make it good? And I guess that's kind of the question to you. What makes a good garden and how, I mean, that's one of the first, you know, in your introduction, that's kind of how you talk about it. What really makes a good garden? Yeah, for me, when I say a good garden, it's really about making sure that everything is nurtured. I mean, obviously, we want our things that we plant, whether it's flowers or beautiful trees or shrubs or food. We obviously want to have those things. That's why we planted them. So we want to be able to balance that and have all of those things and still respect our ecosystem around us and understand that not only do we not have to, you know, and I don't want to get into bashing, you know, how we've been traditionally doing farming, although, but that's okay. Like, you know, that's a whole different thing. But here's the beauty of being small gardeners, being in our own yards. The beauty of that is you get to control it all. I mean, honestly, you don't have to destroy a thing. You get to actually regenerate things, you get to give back, you get to build more soil, get to call in the pollinators that you want to pollinate your vegetables and fruits and everything else. You need all of that. And so not harming that ecosystem is just as important as getting the food that you want. In fact, I think you wouldn't have the food that you want if you harmed the entire ecosystem. So the point, it all goes together. And there's ways, you know, depending on what you're trying to grow and what you're doing, there are ways to make that happen. I know that here, one of our biggest problems, if you know, problems eating our things would be the deer. We have, you know, this whole love hate thing going on with deer, because they are beautiful and they are elegant and they are amazing. And we just, we watch them from the windows going about their lives and we call them, there's mama and there's baby and there's dad. And, you know, we're always, you know, doing all this. And on the other hand, when they come in, they just nail those hydrangeas to the ground and like, oh man, you know. So what we decided to do was, because we do have acreage, we want the deer to have some of the stuff on our acreage. We just went ahead and decided anything that's food, our fruit tree areas, which is turning into a food forest, our vegetable gardens and things. We just fence those super tall and they just don't get that spot. That's the spot they don't get, but then they're walking around all on the outside doing their other things. So that's the way like we handle that instead of saying, you can't have any of our acreage. That's how we chose to do it because we enjoy the beauty of them. But just, you know, to me, a good garden is definitely one that not only doesn't harm things, but also gives back. We, and we do funny things give back. You know, we are human beings living here. We are, and that's another thing, another thing I'm trying really hard to explain to people because I've heard people act like we're interlopers somehow into the natural world. We are so not interlopers. We belong here. We are part of nature. It is in us and that's why we have to use our bigger brains as, you know, humans who have these brains and be able to do what we can to preserve it and to help it and encourage it. But meanwhile, we do these weird things like we have livestock here. So we have big, big things of water, right? And one year, this was, this was about 15 years ago. My husband went down to our horse trough. It was at another farm. And a baby squirrel had drowned in the horse trough. And he was like, oh man, how sad. So he kind of pulls it out and digs out a little hole and buries him, you know. And then he's on his way to work and I see him carrying like a bunch of these twig thing. Like, what are you doing? Because he was late. And he says, I'm just going to run this down to the horse trough. And I'm like going, what? And he's like, oh, I'm building a little ladder to go in the horse trough. So they could crawl out. And I thought that's brilliant. So now in all of our water things, so to feed our animals and things. And of course, you know, in natural ponds and stuff, little creatures die all the time. But, you know, I figure, hey, I put that big trough there. There's not an edge, you know, like a natural edge. They might go to swim to and get out. So I create one. So it's just, you know, our way of just doing something back is we had done something that may cause something. So we thought, oh, try and help them out. So I mean, you know, it's little fun things like that, that it doesn't cost anything or doesn't, you know, is it really, but it's just a thought of what you might be doing and then what you might do to help that situation. Absolutely. I love that. And your book is chocked full of those things one after the other. So like plant hardiness zone map as a map inside of your book, kind of depending on where you live in the United States. And also where you can find it, the same type of map in other places around the world where you can look and go get that information. So you can see, okay, well, would it make sense for certain types of plants in my garden where I live. And then you go on to say, which is beautiful, is that in some gardens, there's like a microclimate this, this micro system that even though you're in the middle of, you know, a desert or some kind of real wild cold climate that there are pockets of these microclimates that you actually can help to create as well through how you build up your garden, how you create that little ecosystem of your yard or the place where you're doing your garden, which I really like. Why did you decide to include that? What was your main reason to go into such a detail? Right. Well, with microclimates, what I like the first of all, I'm like that, you know, I do talk about, you know, the zones and, you know, where different plants can go with different parts of the country. And those are all well and good. And they serve a great purpose. I mean, obviously, if you want to put blueberry bushes in and it's not going to survive in your area, then, you know, blueberry bushes have to come back every year in order to produce, you know, they're not annuals. These are shrubs for annual plants, right? So you're going to have to follow that. But short of that sort of thing, I'm really a, I'm really a rebel when it comes to that because I have found that even people say, you can't grow this in Northern California. And we're in a weird situation anyway, because we're like in the foothills. So California itself, you know, especially Southern California, very, very different climate than Northern California. We get cold, you know, and I mean, even where we are, you know, we'll get snow, whatever. And I just find that I like to try things. And so I'll take certain things. And we have this whole area, not so much right where I am, but not too far down the road. We have what we call the banana belt. And for some strange reason, they can grow like orange trees and stuff there. They don't die. No one knows why, you know, but it's just this heat wave area that goes through there, right? And that can be at your own home too. It can be something like that, or it can just be the side of a building. And the heat coming off that building keeps some plant right there alive that really shouldn't be in your area alive. And so I like to try different things because if it's not too extreme, I think, well, I bet I can find a spot somewhere over here where I can nurture it in such a way or create a situation, you know, planting something high on a hill is going to give a different exposure than planting it on the north side of the hill, the south side of the hill. So I like to just test things out and also remind people too, when it comes to your zones, that has nothing to do with annual plants. You know, that's going to be the daylight you have in your area, but it's not, annuals can grow anywhere. You know, they produce their, they do everything in one season. So you're going to grow zinnias, it doesn't matter what their hardiness zone is, it makes no difference. Zinnias are going to grow and flower on one season, produce their seed. So just, you know, not getting people too hung up on that. But if you're going to plant, you know, trees and shrubs and things that then it would become, you know, more important. But I like taking these tiny, you know, areas and I have a great, very interesting property because in the front, it's like blazing sun. And then in the back, we have all these many, many, it's like an oak forest. And so we can grow chameleons and things because we've got a lot of this shade and, you know, stuff like that. So it's fun finding those different areas and figuring out, but even in a small area, you know, creating micro climates can mean life or death for whatever, you know, and just experimenting with it is great. Oh, so I love that. And that's how I read it out in the book as well. Well, one step further, I mean, I just was in COP 27 last year in November in Shaman, Sheikh, Egypt, desert, probably degraded as much as it can be the Sinai regions, just but in the middle of that, unbelievable, the certified area, basically sand, very, very, very strong sand. There's this great organization called Sikkim. It's a group of Germans that left and went to Egypt. They're originally from there, but they were living in Germany to start biodynamic farming. And you discuss biodynamic farming in your book as well. It's the old Rudolf Steiner biodynamic farming, you know, really great. And they started in the desert. There's before pictures and you see sand storms and just sand everywhere you're like, this is impossible. Now it's like an oasis. That's a green, the temperature is cooler there. Because of the plants and trees that they've planted there, it throws up all sorts of moisture into the air at those plants, respirate and precipitate every single day. They capture carbon, they lock it into the soils. They also exhaust oxygen. They do a plethora of things, plants and trees that they use in this form. And it's totally changed from the extreme climate into an oasis where the temperature is measurable. And they've done other examples where same situations where there's huge deserts where they've just planted some trees and shrubs on each side of the road of an asphalt road that's going through the middle of the desert. And the temperature variations from that, even though there's an asphalt street running right down the middle of where they've found us, is much different than just bare sand or soil that is left open that doesn't have cover on it. And the temperature differences. And it's amazing how we can control that as well in our gardens. Even if we're in the middle of a city, before we started the recording, we talked a little bit about Ron Finley, the gangster garden in Los Angeles who's planting edible food on the sidewalks in the streets and went and talked to the city councils and things to do that, plant things that we can put to use and eat and provide us with shade and different things. So we need to just feel that empowerment of what benefits that it can do and also change our climate and what we're doing. I read that out in your book that you really kind of give people this playful art to create their own gardens, to create what they would like to see, to improve that and in that process and having the right tools in your book, there's this transformation, this experience that really happens. And that goes back to the first question that I kind of asked you as during this time of craziness, I've seen so many more people to say, hey, you know, I would like to have a little bit more security, plant more tomatoes in my garden, plant more cucumbers or zucchini or squash or to do some more perennials in my yard and reap the benefit. I even know people who don't even have a yard in their homes in their kitchens, they're doing, you know, sprouting and all different kinds of things to say, I want to do something on my own to kind of, to watch it grow. And it's just beautiful to see that. And I think your book inspires that going throughout. Would you recommend if somebody wants to set out on this path that they kind of take a step back first and do a little design and planning or what are your recommendations for the absolute beginner who's experienced some of these things and says, you know, I don't know, I roses die in my house. How am I going to do a garden? You know, I can't even keep a rubber plant or a plant alive in my home. How do I expect to do the garden? What's your advice for those people just starting out and what would be some of the first steps that you would recommend for them? Right. Well, you know, the first thing I would always look at is what you want. Like in your mind's eye, what is it that you, because if you always start off with what you really want, that you're going to, you're going to really get into it and dig into it, you know, deeper. As far as your yard goes, I always recommend that people get an idea and you'd have to do this, you know, it, most people are talking about spring and summer gardening predominantly, right? As opposed to, you know, in the winter, all the winter gardening is awesome. But to go outside and take a picture at eight o'clock in the morning of that area that you want to garden it or the several areas and then take one at noon and take one at four and you're going to start to see where you're going to get the most light because what is full sun, six hours or more full sun, right? And then, and then maybe what gets shady, like maybe you only have sun till about 11 o'clock, now you've got this nice little dappled shade or part shade area where some other plant might be happier. So at least knowing how much light that you're having those areas, you know, that's going to be your best bet. And the other thing is, of course, you know, consider bringing in some compost when you go to start always, because that's going to be very helpful. And, and I practice no till gardening where I don't disturb the soil structure, you know, so that's like something I don't do, I don't dig down, I build up. Not everything has to have sides, by the way. At my home in the Bay Area in the backyard, we had taken down the trees, so we had done, you know, logs around it, we filled soil up in that first. So going and buying lumber, is that necessary? I mean, you can, and it looks very neat. But, but basically, you know, doing, you know, doing that kind of stuff, knowing what you have, and what you want to plant. If you just want to experiment and try things, I always say, start with herbs, because herbs are like so forgiving. They grow everywhere. You know, they just, they're really, really good. There's something that want to, you know, and that, speaking of wanting to stay alive, that's something people don't tell you, too. I think as a beginning gardener, a lot of people think that plants, you know, oh, how do I really care for this plant? You do need to know how much sun it means. You do need to water it. This is all true. But the thing is, plants are engineered to grow. They're on your side. They want to grow. Like it's amazing if you've ever seen the little things coming out of the cracks of sidewalks. You know, I mean, these things want to reproduce themselves. They want to be alive. So really the plants on your side and they try real hard to survive. They try to help you. So, you know, and as far as the roses thing, I just have to throw this in there because this is something I've always meant to write an article about. You know, those roses they sell in the grocery store, they're real pretty and they're decorative and that, you know, and you bring them in your house. So you give them as gifts and people go, oh, they died. I mean, I want to, oh my gosh, you guys, roses can't live in the house ever in a million years. I don't care how cute and tiny and adorable and they look like houseplants. They are not houseplants. They hate it in the house. So it's so sad. People have them on their kitchen table. Do that for like seven days and then go plant them outside, you know, because they can't live in the house. And now watch, I'll get a lot of people like, you really be going, but I'm telling you, no, they're not. They're dead. You know, they're dead. You're lying. It's like, they hate it. So I feel so bad because my article was really going to be about how these little roses are sold to die. They grow to their little lives. They're going to die. So it makes me sad. Yeah. I mean, that's probably a whole, a whole nother book or another topic. I go to Thailand and India quite a bit and the crazy thing is that culturally in some religions, they do a lot of flower offerings, you know. And so there's, there are, there are some flowers that are grown every single day that are just put up at these shrines. And then depending on what big temple or shrine that there is around the world, that every hour, depending on the number of visitors, there's these other people that come, come by as the new tourists or the new people who are going to the temple to, or the shrines to make their offerings, then sweep all those flowers, you know, right into a garbage can and then haul it off. And so it's got a, this, you know, it's this short life cycle, but it's, I really think we could be doing a lot better with our resources and our things. And I understand the traditions and cultures on that. But yeah, the roses, a lot of roses are bred to go die on your kitchen table or in your loved ones, you know, a table or, you know, yeah, it's sad. Yeah. I think a lot of indoor plants are, honestly, they're, you know, well, a lot of the indoor plants, obviously we grow for homes are tropical, right? So, you know, they're, they're living in the tropics. We bring them indoors and, you know, they do a really good job surviving most of the time, but you are really creating an artificial situation that I honestly, I find outdoor gardening sometimes easier, unless you find a great little spot in your house where you plant super happy. But, but really outdoor gardening, I think is almost easier in some ways. You know, obviously I'm not planning too many tropicals out there. My environment doesn't really allow that anyway. So, but, you know, but still I always like, yeah, I'd rather kind of plant things outdoors and keep them alive than try to, you know, I do have house plants, but they, they all found their little spot. And then that's where they stay. If you move them around too much, it gets a little crazy. So, so one thing I really liked about the book is as you get further into it, it talks a lot about pests, it talks about weed control. But it also tells you that depending on what you plant is also what can attract certain things, a certain insects, certain pollinators, certain pests, sometimes depending on what you have, what kind of animals you keep, or if you decide to, to bring animals, you know, chickens or rabbits or ducks or whatever into, into your system as well, into your, into your garden, that those are all, whether it's a plant or an animal, those are all something that will attract something, maybe attract more water, maybe attract more sunlight, maybe it'll shade more, maybe, you know, maybe it'll attract a certain pollinator or a certain insect. So now I like it because if you've gotten so far and you're like, oh, I already did, but I didn't read that section yet. And so I've already, I've kind of planted some things that are working against me. How do I control? How do I can, how can I change that or kind of attract the right things so that it's an ecosystem? I have a nice balance, not too much of my stuff is getting eaten and there's balance and you, you go through that balance and that harmony and discuss how, how that works. What, what is your, what led you to write that, but what, what really has been your experience on, on what you've dealt over the years with, not only your own garden, but others you've talked to and kind of seen, is it after the fact that they always go back and say, or do, do some of us start from the beginning trying to plan it out as a designer. So I, I also studied with Bill Mollison and Jeff Lawton, permaculture design in Australia and Tasmania and they really teach you before you get going, let's design it, let's think about, let's take those pictures and, and find out what we're working with and then let's move forward. Not everybody does it that way, especially in the home gardens. Yeah. And you know, and, and then that's a, I love that point because if you're just starting a garden, certainly you can start from scratch and really do a lot of research and, and all that, but most people really aren't, especially in urban and suburban areas, predominantly there's an existing landscaping of some sort, either by the builder, if it's a brand new home or by the previous owners who have been there. So usually we're working with these bones from other, other people and other things. And so for me, it's an evolution. And I think I even talk about, you know, in, in the book is that I'm not really, I'm really, I would say I'm a realist in a whole lot of ways. I mean, I'm a dreamer for sure, but I'm a realist. So I look at things like I try not to plant things ever that are invasive. That's like a big no no for me, like I don't want, you know, and what I want to mention too is some things, and I mentioned this all the way through the book. Some things are invasive in some areas and not in others. I have a catalpa tree out here and people are like, oh, those are so invasive. Never happened here. I don't know. Look, there's no, they're not, they're not invasive where I am. We've got the one catalpa tree down here and then way up at the top of only one more, no other catalpa. So for me, that's okay. It's all good. For somewhere else, it may not be good. So I don't like to plant things that are invasive. That's something I steer clear of because they don't want it pushing out our native, you know, trees and shrubs. But I don't mind so much about something that is necessarily non-native as long as it is not something invasive, which specifically talks about pushing our native things out. That's a very different from something that just, you know, isn't native here, but it's planted here. And in some respects, I find it almost impossible. Again, I'm going to get a lot of emails if I say this. I disagree when someone says, well, I only have natives. That's all I have. It's like, well, then what you did was as you moved to a place that had all the natives there, maybe you live in the woods, a venereal, all natives, awesome. That's really cool. But you can't have a vegetable garden and plant all natives. It is not going to happen. You do not have one plant in your vegetable garden. You don't. And it's the same with herbs. So if you're growing for food, your plants are not going to be native. So what I just make sure is they're not invasive. Like mint is a really good one. Oh my goodness, mint. Mint will take over the United States of America. Mint is like that guy in the last of us, you know, it's like it takes over everything. So if I want mint, I have it in a big round pot on a table on cement. So it can't go under and start to creep out under and grow, you know, it's just a really, really crazy plant. So I just kind of do that because I'm like, I don't want everything taken over by this. So I'm just a real realist about it. You are usually going to start with something else already there. And you can slowly take away things that you don't want. But then also things that aren't causing harm, but that are very lovely. You like it. Maybe it's bringing a lot of shade and an area you need. Then, you know, then you're just adding things to what you're doing. It's really for me about learning. It's really just about learning what you might do next to improve on the area you're in, because any improvement, you know, and a lot of my book really talks about, you know, any improvements that you're making, changes you're making for the positive. If you do them in such a way that you're respectful and you are inclusive, talk to people about these things, you might be able to get some neighbors involved in doing the same thing. And then then you're really helping the ecosystem because you're spreading it throughout your neighborhood. So that's a big thing for me. Yeah, that is a big thing. How would you address or speak to people who are maybe in suburbia? They're in a planned urban development or a HUD development, or it's pretty planned out suburban development somewhere in the United States. And there's not a lot of indigenous anything. There's not a lot of heirloom anything in the area, not a lot of natural growth. That's pretty much the typical planted lawn type of yard, but they want to turn it into something. There's this big talk about indigenous microorganisms. What's, you know, what's heirloom to the area? What's what's natural for this area, even though we're talking suburbia somewhere? Right. How do we, one, get that indigenous microorganism back into the compost, the soil, into what you want to build up, something that's there, and then properly gauge that? Or do you have some tools that we can kind of look and judge and find that out? What's your rule of thumb and how do you, would you advise people in that situation? Well, you know, I would become involved or just or just, you know, reach out to a native plant society in your area. They're they're so great with this. And in one of the things that they're really good at, and it's a great question that you're saying, because some of these native plants, like some of the native plants I have here, they're not going to be, how would you say, you know, they're not overly decorative. They're not going to be something that people go, wow, that looks terrific. Can I copy that and put that in my yard? That's not necessarily noticeable a lot of the time. A lot of these native shrubs and stuff are very nondescript and that sort of thing. And you might not find, you know, anything that's attractive that way. But the native plant societies, they are very good and they have, you know, different sales during the year, different people kind of growing these things. And they actually, you know, have like a list and stuff of plants that are actually just lovely and interesting and but supportive of exactly the insects and the native, even the native mammals and the critters, the birds that belong in your area, the native caterpillars, which of course, those caterpillars are going to call them the birds that belong in your area, all of these things. But they're a lovely plant that goes in your garden. You know, Cianothus is one that I really love for California. Cianothus is amazing. Beautiful plant. And, you know, and when you look at places like that that actually specialize in it, sometimes it's a little easier than hunting it down yourself like, oh, what are some native plants for this area? You're going to get lots of lists that what really would be there had your development not come in and done all this. And you can also visit, you know, some of the preserves around your area and you'll see some of those. But again, they're going to be a little more of the, how would you say the original species, which aren't always as, you know, aesthetically pleasing for yards as maybe some of the ones that are being developed now that are still very, very viable for the area, but maybe have a nice little, you know, look about them. So I would always reach out to those societies. And I know here in California, we have a couple of native plant nurseries when there's not that many, but, you know, there are a few and they're super helpful. So they're good places to reach out to. Absolutely. I love that. I love that you gave that suggestion. I work a lot with the John Lou's ecosystem restoration camps and even more so now he was also on a podcast. We're seeing a big uptake around the world with people kind of trying to restore the world, trying to restore our earth to get it back to health. And I gave you the example in Egypt where they're trying to take a desert and get it back to some state where it was thriving and flourishing, you know, decades, centuries before, but into another state where we lower the temperatures and we kind of restore those ecosystems instead of, you know, giving up and saying we need to move elsewhere. The reason I bring that up is, you know, you've spoken a couple of times about California. California is really interesting because there's a lot of people in these urban or these areas that are now being displaced as climate refugees in the United States because of the wildfires of the fires and things that are going on. I mean, we could take another example, not even in the United States, the brush fires in Australia, you know, where they have the big brush fires also kind of based around farming, based around climate change, different things where just regular people who probably have a garden and probably have a nice setup, they're living on a small, you know, one acre, half acre, maybe sometimes up to, you know, five acre properties, a little bit more forestry, that are now being displaced because of these brush fires. How do you think by them gardening, doing a little homestanding, by doing a little restoration in the area where they live, they could do some prevention or restoration to avoid some of those things? Do you think that's possible in the practice of gardening and some of the things that you discuss? Well, I think it is. I think that part of that is, of course, I know in our area, we try to plant things that are a little more non-flammable. Now, it's super interesting because like we had, we have a lot of manzanita around here. Manzanita is highly flammable. So, and it's native to California. In fact, it can't procreate without catching on fire. Ironically, so it's extremely dangerous around these homes and things like that. So, they make us clear, you know, 100 feet from our, you know, homes. And if you have trees, they want you to make sure that the branches are trimmed up high so that, you know, if there's a fire, it'll go through the canopy and not, you know, down low. So, I mean, you know, really just, I think the fact that you're even landscaping that area in such a way, it doesn't have to be landscaping the traditional sense, but just you planting things and letting things be watered and covering the ground as you talked about before to keep things moist and damp. That's obviously very helpful, you know, for fires and things like that. But then also having to be aware, if you are in a high fire area about what you're actually planting, I think that, you know, like I said, there's things that you wouldn't want to put a bunch of specific shrubs together that are highly flammable right next to your house and like lights it up. I haven't gone too deeply in exploring more of what you're saying, although it's really a fascinating topic, especially given where I went like the fire nation over here, people talk about earthquakes. I don't necessarily see it as a full blown, you know, ecosystem restoration camp or actually restoring the earth, but I think it's an even more microcosm, a smaller way of starting to kind of, first of all, raise awareness and say, wow, what can we do? But now, could we even do some other things now, seeing what's going on in different places around the world, not just California, where we see that, you know, places are just going up in flames, there are some issues happening. And a lot of these areas in California as well are, it's not necessarily the trees or that the fires are started. What we're seeing now is because there's so little moisture in the ground that there's just this spontaneous combustion that occurs right out of the ground because it's so dry, there's not a lot of moss, there's not a lot of things that all of a sudden it just, you know, just start naturally. As you said, you know, that species is one that cannot go on without fire. So it's indigenous and that's also, you know, one that is used to that type of proliferation so that it continues to propagate and continues on. But I think it's a good beginning to look at that. And there are a couple images, if I recall correctly, in your book of ground covering that is different. It's actual wood chips, so where they're chipping up some kind of bark or brown matter on the ground, which is also a good food for the soil. It's also a cover. It also captures that water, creates a spongy filling. It's nice to walk on, but it also lowers the temperature, but it also holds that moisture in the ground. It gives the worms and other things stuff to eat as well. What are your thoughts on non-traditional, not just planning, but maybe other kind of ground covering? How do you build up your topsoil? Do you build that up in a separate space, obviously, but you did mention you're building every year new topsoil. What are some tips and things in your section that you can kind of give some people advice on that? What are your thoughts on those directions as well? Yeah, well, what we've done is the people that were here before us did have cattle. And so they, it's kind of interesting, they haven't been here for quite a while. So what happened was, of course, the cattle spread manure everywhere. And the places where they were located has built up because that broke down, composted on its own and became kind of nice, right? So I got to start off with something kind of nice in a lot of the areas, not all of it, some of it's hard-paying clay. But the wood chips, I like to add, like, you know, on the very top. But before that, I like to, we do our own compost, but we also have to bring in compost sometimes because we don't make enough of it. I mean, boy, when you put a big pile up there, by the time it's composted, it's way down. So it's the areas we want to spread it in that gets kind of thin. So we're constantly adding compost. And then the wood chips, that's why I love the organic stuff is because it does eventually break down, you know, all the macros come up, you know, you have your worms and everything to help break it down, the beetles, everything. And then I end up having to add more wood chips. But as all that process is happening, and it does take years, I mean, I'm not going to lie about it. I mean, it takes time to do that. But I cheat. You know, I do. I have no problem going and buying some garden soil, bringing that into a spot where I'm trying to start a brand new garden on hard pan. I bring that in with the compost. And then I might cover it with wood chips, or I might cover it with straw. We do have animals here. And so I'll have straw and I'll, you know, cover the ground with that. It keeps everything nice and moist as well. That also breaks down. So I use all kinds of things like that. I might use, in a garden bed that I'm not using for the season, I might actually plant red clover or some kind of legume, you know, even peas or something, because they capture carbon nitrogen from the air and they keep it squashed out of the soil. When you knock it down, it releases the nitrogen into the ground and helps my next crop grow. But anything that, you know, even my vining plants, you know, like pumpkins and things, when I grow that, boy, those leaves are huge and the vines grow everywhere. And they are also keeping the moisture down in the vegetable areas as well. So anything that I can get to shade from that sun, because we do, in our sunny areas, we have some brilliant sun. That afternoon sun is insanely hot. And, you know, if you just keep that ground covered somehow, it really, it's, you know, I mean, it helps with the watering and everything. It helps you all the way around, much less, you know, helping to build the soil and, you know, get, you know, as that stuff breaks down too, you know, it's going to mention too, there's a great flower farmer that I follow and she does this wonderful little video, Lisa Mason Ziegler. And she shows how like she cuts down the sunflowers, right? But she leaves the roots and the stem. And then when she goes to plant, she just goes right next to it, because those things break down and become the soil. And so that's all part of no-till, you know, that let all that go back into the earth and just regenerate. And it's really amazing to watch that soil over the years. But it does take time. And I mentioned that in the book too. Everybody's just got to slow it down. We're all used to Amazon Prime. I get it. I get it. I'm looking too. It's supposed to be here yesterday. What's happening? You know, but when it comes to the car, you got to, you know, I mean, I mean, you know, we sanded the microwave. You ever noticed that you sanded the microwave going, come on. And you had it in there for 30 seconds. You're going, come on, 30 seconds. But you know, we can't live our lives that way. I think that's what we're all discovering. The good stuff is in the slow stuff. And so once things start happening and growing, everything starts to balancing out and, you know, in your gardens. And you start to find that took a little time. But it's so worth it. You know, I mean, you get all the good stuff if you slow down just a little bit. Yeah, I agree. There's a lot of benefits. And I think it's a process. It's a journey. I mean, you know, it's not perfect. We're still learning and everybody can kind of be on that journey. The easier it becomes, the more you learn, the better you find the tips and tricks that are in your book. I believe the more you can experiment, the more you can grow, the more you can put things on kind of autopilot where you say, yeah, well, I know that every year now I've got a routine. I've got a setup. I've got it dialed in just how I want it. But that takes a little while. And yeah, I love your example of the microwave. I write about food a lot and have talked about food research. Only been about five really big innovations in agriculture and food in our lifetimes. And one of them was really the microwave that was supposed to help us in the cooking process, help to make things go faster, help to kind of be better for reusing leftovers, you know, warming up leftovers and things and ended up turning out to be a curse because now not only do we eat more, we don't always just heat up leftovers. We use it as to cook, you know, frozen foods and full meals straight in there instead of cooking at the slow way. And we kind of expect this quick fix so that we can go eat in front of the TV. And then when we eat, then we're like, Oh, I'm not really full. Let's go back. And so people are gaining more weight. And there's a lot of a lot of issues on that quick. Instead of using it to be more efficient or something, it's spending more out time outside or more time gardening. We actually took that extra time from that we got from the microwave and actually it hasn't always helped to our benefit. But yeah, I love that example. In your book, you also have, you know, the clay triangle talk about different soil types and, you know, sand, silt and clay percentages and what the soil type looks like in your area. You deep dive into compost, deep dive into rain capture, so rain harvesting through barrels and different runoffs that you can use in your garden. You talk about, you know, how you use cover and build up topsoil and do things. So all that is there. And then you really go down into how can we, you know, use critters and animals and how can we cultivate healthy food and build these communities, giving people really the tools that they need step through step. And then at the end, there's this beautiful plethora of resources that if you didn't cover them, if they want to go into the rabbit hole of environment and climate and kind of doing good for sustainability and your environment and yourself and your health, that you can get other tools and tips and tricks. So I really love that. What is your most important part of the book that you really love and you say, well, I absolutely had this because I've seen it over the years. And this is really probably the biggest resource that everybody needs that you would express to the listeners. You know, something that, I mean, gosh, I really wrote the book as a gateway, right? So like I talk a little about permaculture and right. But I don't, you know, I don't go all the way down those paths, hence the resources in the back, like, hey, if you want to dig deeper, right? But it's so, I mean, I don't know if one thing stands out other than something that I don't think I've ever gotten so much into vocalizing before is talking about community and talking about how important your community is. I don't think people realize, you know, people think like, you know, like, because we're all looking at our phones or we're all looking at the computers, right? But, you know, and people say, we've all gotten away. We're not really that into other people anymore. And it's very interesting to me because you say that. And yet some of the most popular things online, right? They're all the chat rooms. They're what we're doing right now. Hello, we're reaching out now through these, through this electronics to reach other people. We are not getting away from people. It's just not true. We are still seeking it because we need it. And we need community. People were not meant to be alone. They just were not meant. And I don't mean that by definition of marriage or something. I mean that by reaching out to other people, even physical touch, you know, I mean, it's, you know, so I really want to express what that looks like in a suburban or urban setting, what that looks like to reach out to your neighbors. And, you know, people get so afraid of, you know, it's like, oh, you know, I have this compost pile. And I think my neighbor think this actually happened to me. My neighbor was thinking that the flies were coming from my compost pile. She's like, you know, I think she's looking over my fence. You know, I think like maybe your compost pile smells because I think like maybe got flies that I said, come over, come over, let's see if that's what it is. Because certainly I wouldn't want that to happen. So she comes over and she's like, oh, and she's looking around. I go, she was, I think maybe it smells. And I'm like, really? And I stuck my hand in there. And I brought it out. I go, does it smell? And she's like, oh, no, it kind of just smells like soil. Yeah, flies aren't probably coming from that. You know, and it made her start to think like, oh, so, hey, wait a minute. So like you're growing all this stuff and you have this and doesn't smell like, you know, and it, you know, it gets her start to think and maybe she might want to do it or something. So, you know, getting to share with people, some people are always going to be upset over things when they change a little bit. But not often, you'd be very amazed if you just talk with people what they actually listen, you think maybe they're not and they actually do. And, and I think it's a really sad thing that we're so afraid of, you know, inviting people into that circle. And, you know, by extension, I go into if you're not, you know, don't have a problem with that or you don't want to get into that or whatever. I'm getting into the citizen science, which is super fun, by the way. If you love nature and you want to learn more getting into citizen science is amazing way to, you know, and you can do things from your own garden watching the bluebirds or listening, literally listening to the croaking of frogs as part of it. I mean, there's so many different cool things. So just reaching out and that's all part of your community. I mean, that's also reaching out to other people and seeing what's happening in their area. And, you know, I just, I'm just really big on that. I don't think people talk a lot about the people around us and, you know, what it looks like to involve them or try to get them excited about what you're doing and maybe they'll do it too. So I mean, that's, I think that's one of the things that takeaways. I think that's a beautiful takeaway in that, you know, that community is so, so big. I see it in many respects and luckily I was fortunate knock on wood due to see it, you know, growing up and to see how that community builds on the small part. But it's nice how children will come. Sorry, I'm still not sure about that. Sorry about that. It's really funny how community on my series listening to our podcast, it's funny how community really can be built in many ways how children, you know, can go to their parents or their grandparents and they say, I want us to grow pumpkins so that come Halloween we can carve a pumpkin out of our thing or they get real excited about strawberries or certain things. And, you know, they're like, I want us to put this in the garden so that we can have this, you know, because it's something that they get on and that already starts to build in your own family. But I've seen it in other respects where neighbors who don't have a garden or haven't done it, they say, hey, would you mind planting some zucchini for me? Would you mind planting, you know, some of this or could I get some of your extra and it starts out maybe you have access on what you've grown. And you just say, oh, we've got tons of tomatoes or we're going on vacation. They'll never eat them all. And, you know, I haven't had time to preserve them. And you give them away. And the next thing you know, you've got your neighbors and your relatives, your friends and people around you hooked. And then they're coming to you say, Hey, can you plant something for me? I'd love that. And next thing you know, it just spreads like wildfire. I know people with whether it's apples or plums or whatever that they're they're growing in different places. It's like, boy, give me that. I want to dehydrate that. And I want some, you know, to make some fruit leather or some dried fruits or I want it. I want some of that for my salads. And just how that in and of itself grows communities and building. And during the pandemic, we saw quite a bit where those who had already been doing this for quite some time, they were able to pivot and have enough abundance to then give to their neighbors and other people who didn't who weren't prepared and didn't have enough. And even if people didn't always do that, they were able to make it through this time on a different note. They they're the ones who are laughing at everybody's who was running to the grocery store and buying out all the toilet paper, because I guess they're going to ship more than usual and needed toilet paper. Or you know, it's funny how how many grocery stores I went to and around the world. It was the same thing everywhere. So it's not culturally specific. It was that way. But in almost every one of them, when I went to the fresh food section, the produce section, there was always fresh produce there, the preserves and the can things and all those things, those were empty. And the paper towels and the toilet paper were empty, the water water. But you know what? There wasn't hardly one grocery. I went to quite a few during the pandemic, where they were saying there's no toilet paper or bottled water. But there was sure a lot of fresh food that I would eat, a lot of vitamins and nutrients. And so and eventually went when the light bulb went on for most people that that's probably the wrong places we need to be looking. Right. And then you realize that the fresh food and vegetables and people started cooking more. And they says, yeah, the restaurants are closed down or we can't go out. Let's start cooking. And people like I discovered people who are hidden chefs, you know. So there's so many community thing. Yeah. I was like, well, I didn't know you could cook. And next thing you know, they're saying, yeah, that's great. So there's a lot of beautiful benefits that come out of out of those things that I've seen as well. And so I really, I also saw that as well. And that's why I really appreciate you talking about the community section Yeah, of your book. And I really, I really think it's there. And that really leads me to the hardest question I have for you today. It's one that I asked the one that I ask all of my guests and it really ties to that building a community into life. It's what does a world that works for everyone look like for you and just for you? Not for me, not for your government, not your husband. What does it look like for you? Well, for me, I mean, very, very specifically, I think it, it looks like people who value the natural world and which includes human beings. So if we can value living things, for me, that that's really the answer to everything. It's the root of everything and it starts very locally. So that for me, that's what I try to focus on is to get people to realize that they can not only be, you know, respectful and value their own ecosystem, their own area, but that they can encourage people around them. And that's that's how everything spreads. That's how everything is going to get better and change as if we actually do it right what we're standing right now. And you don't have to be, you know, somebody that has a lot of land or a lot of influence in the world at all, because just your single influence is going to make an impact. So again, I think it's just valuing, you know, our natural world is probably, yeah, that's probably my answer. Absolutely love that. That's great. Thank you. Ding, ding, ding, you got the right answer. You did it. Sorry about that. You're fine. Yeah, no, that's a perfect answer. There are some great things coming down the line for you. We can't talk about all of them. But basically, you are working on some some interesting things that we are hopefully can look forward to us around creative living and kind of giving people tools and ideas how to be creative and creating not only creative living, but lifestyles, creative lifestyles. How do you build a lifestyle for yourself? Where do you find the tools? How do you do it? How do you do that? And that's near to me as well to my heart. I have a foundation. It's called the Alohas Regenerative Foundation. Alohas has a special meeting. A lot of people think it's the Hawaiian greeting. No, that's Aloha. Mine is Alohas. And it's an acronym for adaptive lifestyle of health and sustainability. And the key factor in there is lifestyle. How can we create a lifestyle that works for us, works for community, works for our family, and works for other? That is one that has all the systems and all the factors of food, water, climate, cool temperatures, not too hot, not too cold. That is a beautiful lifestyle to live. And how does it support the lifestyle that we kind of separate ourselves out into in the world? Sometimes we're living one thing at work and we're living a different way and our personal lives at home. And we kind of separate those things. And we talk about this work-life balance. But there is no work-life balance. It's all life. There is no separation. You're one person at work and you're one person as you're gardening and another person at your church. If you were, you would probably be bipolar or triple polar because it just doesn't exist. You'd be a different person every time. You're all the same person. It's all part of this beautiful gift of life. And so I love that you bring up that in lifestyle. So I know we're going to be, I don't know if you can tell us or tease a little bit what you're working on, but I know we should watch for something great coming your way. Yeah, I think, yeah. It's going to be, it's called From Scratch Online and it's a takeoff of the magazine we had done before, but it'll be a different platform sort of thing. And it's just extending itself from, just from, From Scratch was a homestead, modern homestead thing. We kind of are taking it farther this time and really talking about the creativity of human beings and even how that connects to our emotional and mental health as well. Not so much getting deep into that like, you know, try, it's not like psychologist or something. It's more about how human beings doing these creative things and living a creative lifestyle and how that works with who we are as people. And even if you don't think of yourself as creative, you are. You're creating all the time. And so, you know, it just gives people a lot of tools and things to do that with. And it could be things from your garden, from, you know, bringing them in and doing things. It could be anything, it could be sewing, it could be whatever. We would want to get into kids. Oh gosh, we have something on there that is tracking animals and having kids take plaster of Paris out with them and, you know, making the plaster animal tracks so they can take those home and look at them and try to figure out what kind of maybe bird that might have been or something that was hopping on the ground or, you know, so really, it's intentional living. And so all of this goes together. Everything you're saying, you know, is, it's really being intentional about your life. And so that's kind of where we're going with it. And I hope we're, I think we'll be live in June. And so. Great. Well, we're not going to push you. We know it takes a time. We'll take it slow. And we'll be watching for something for you. I only have two more questions for you. And then we're done. So there, you know, we, I didn't really talk too much, but you've already, all laughing crow company is, is that correct? Is your company as well? Oh, you know what? That's our farm. Is that correct? That's our farm name. Yeah. Laughing crow and company. That's your farm. Wow. Yeah. So we need to go to that website. If someone goes there, that's just our farm website. And eventually I'll leave you to the other new one. But that's where you can find me for sure. Email me anything like that. Great. Great. So, so, so that wasn't my two questions, but I just want to make sure we'll put in the show descriptions, all your links and information to get a hold of you and watch for things coming out in the future as well as to see the links to your other books as well. If there was one message that you could depart to the new gardener or the gardener's been around kind of doing this for a while, that would have the power to change their gardening future. Would you have one message or maybe even a couple of messages that you would love to depart to those people? Well, one, like I said before, having patience and letting things that you've put into motion have a chance to work because it isn't a microwave. It's not Amazon Prime. It's just it's much more natural than that. And, you know, nature's a little slower, but it always gets done, I'll tell you. But the other thing is how we look at perfection. That's really important to me what perfection actually looks like. And when you have a beautiful tomato plant and it's producing a bunch of tomatoes, and you have two leaves that are eaten by a cutter leaf bee who's just building their nest. Actually, they're going to stop pretty soon once they've got that nest going. You know, honestly, that's not damage, guys. It's just simply not damage. That's the ecosystem at work. Your garden is part of the ecosystem. So the way we see perfection, it's perfect for the bees. It's perfect for you. You've got your tomatoes. Tomatoes are fine. So some of those leaves are eaten and everything's fine for them. Everything's fine for you. That's perfection. It isn't Instagram posts that we see that are, you know, and that isn't to knock Instagram posts. Okay, we love to look at that beautiful stuff, and that's great. But I'll tell you point of view. That's how you get those. Okay, you just angle that particular leaf out of the photo, get that shot of the beautiful tomato. You have your Instagram post, and you have also a beautiful garden working with the ecosystem as well. So really, I just want people to leave that perfection you were taught was perfection at the garden gate and look at everything new and see what perfection was. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that perfection thing is nature is perfect, and it is a wonderful ecosystem, especially if we let it all work together in a very diverse and abundant system, so that the systems of systems are all kind of interplaying with each other. Everything usually plays out, and you've given some good advice and tips within your book to kind of go through and tell everybody, you know, what are some of the pitfalls, what if you have these certain pests or these insects and things that you don't want, how can we naturally get rid of them without pesticides and herbicides and any kind of horrible chemicals that just come back to hurt us in the end. So I love those advice. I don't run into that as much. I've been farming and gardening for a long time. Probably the worst I've ever had is fungus fruit flies, fungus flies that I've had before that are kind of just an annoyance, but they're not really that big of a deal over the years. But really the biggest heartfelt thing that bothers me the most, and no matter what I do, is waste. If I've spent the time growing something and put that in, that if I lose something, if it goes bad, if it doesn't get back in the system, or if I can't eat it in time, or if I can't give it away, or if I don't get it picked in time and you see it fall onto the ground and rot before you can do something with it, that's the biggest thing for me. But the positive benefit is that it can go back to compost, it can go back to the ground, it can go back to the soil, which is also helpful. It can go to the chickens, it can go to the ducks, it can go to different places, you know, if you have pigs or whatever you have. So there's a lot of other options that benefit. But I just take, you know, when nature presents you with such a good thing that somehow you don't always capture it. But in nature, that's just part of the big cycle. You're not always going to get all of it. But as long as it gets back into that system and it feeds the soil and that, it's great. I do, this is a little bit separate, which is interesting. But it's also tied to that. I do an indoor thing. And when you mentioned about the roses and things, whenever you bring something indoors, it's really not always meant for that. But I do water kefir. So it's like a kombucha almost. It's called water kefir. And so the actual cultures of those, every time I make a new batch, because it's a living, it grows, it gets more, I just don't have enough friends surrounding me to come every time I make a new batch to take my leftovers to, you know, just come and say, okay, here, I used to save it quite a bit. And, you know, I think I had five jars of extra cultures. But eventually it's a living thing. It just keeps going and going and going. And you can, you know, you can put it, but it almost breaks my heart to say, no, I've got it, you know, I'm going to throw it away or put it out on the compost and, you know, figure out something else to do with it. It just breaks my heart because it's abundant. And I guess what I'm saying in the short term of things is in all living systems, all biology, ecology, all living systems, one plus one, never, ever, ever, ever equals two. It's a super exponential. It's something life is abundant and it grows. And there is a divine system out there that really shows us that. And so I love that you, you know, you express and talk about that and how, you know, we should understand it. Let's slow down. Let's realize it's not perfect and make it work for us in the long run. The last question I have for you is what have you learned in this journey in your writing, your experience in the farm and your acreage and what you've done so far that you would love to know from the start? You say, boy, if I would have known that, you know, what would it be? Gosh, I had known that from the beginning. I can tell you just why you're thinking it's for most of the people say, well, nothing, because I love the journey and I was part of the journey. The thing that I personally say is I wish I would have known sooner. I would have started sooner. If I would have had that wisdom sooner of how great it could be, I would have started a lot sooner and made sure to put that path there. But for everybody, it's kind of different. But what would for you? Yeah, for me, you know, it's funny. Unfortunately, I have a perfectionist personality, which I don't enjoy because it got hard on myself. And, you know, if I don't do it right, then I think, ah, you should have known that. And I get really, you know, that's just, it's just part of how I am. Sometimes it stops me from doing things. I think, well, if I can't do it exactly right. So what I have learned is, I mean, this is like, honestly, is do something. You know, and that's like, even in my book, you know, honestly, I tell people like, to do things that are sustainable, to do things that make a good garden, you don't have to do all of it. So you're just not interested in composting. I get it. I mean, I love it. But, you know, maybe you just want to do something else, just bring in some compost for your thing, but you don't want to feel like that. Okay, so you're going to give it to someone else to compost or whatever. But maybe you've decided you're going to quit using pesticides. That's going to be like, you're like, you know what, this makes sense to me. I'm reading this book and I think this does call to me. I'm going to do that. So do that. You don't have to do every single thing the way everybody says it has to be done. Choose what speaks to you. I know for a fact that more will speak to you once you do that. I know that. That's just, it's how it is. And so I think that really that's, I mean, I wish that I would have realized I didn't back then have to know every tiny thing before starting something. You just don't. And when you do it, it unfolds. It just like unfolds before you, like this road. And, you know, and so what happens is you didn't get to do that really cool fun stuff that got to teach you. You learn that much slower because you didn't go for it. So for me, if you go for it, you learn things much faster. You learn about things much faster, how you can do things different or better or more to your liking or more to nature's liking. If you just start. So, you know, I say, I wish I just, you know, I really wish I would have done things faster. Just go for it. Don't worry about everything. Don't worry. Chris, thank you for letting us all inside of your ideas. It has been a sheer pleasure to kind of go over and review the Good Garden, your book together with you and to get your insights and your wisdoms. I am looking forward for the new things that come out in the future from you. And I thank you very much. And that's all I have, unless you have any questions for me before I say goodbye. I just wanted to thank you so much for having me. It's been really fun being here, and I really enjoyed it a lot. So I thank you. You're most welcome. And I know when you've done many books before, so maybe we'll have to have you come back and give us a little update on feedback that we got. Thank you so much, Chris. You take care. Thanks, you too.